Being True to Yourself

• Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.--Hardy D. Jackson
• Accept everything about yourself--I mean everything, You are you and that is the beginning and the end--no apologies, no regrets.--Clark Moustakas
• Any life, no matter how long and complex it may be, is made up of a single moment--the moment in which a man finds out, once and for all, who he is.--Jorge Luis Borges
• Be not anxious about what you have, but about what you are.--Pope Gregory I
• Be what you are. This is the first step towards becoming better than you are.--J. C. Hare & A. W. Hare (Guesses at Truth: Second Series)
• Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter, and those who matter don't mind.--Dr. Suess
• Being born in a duck yard does not matter, if only you are hatched from a swan's egg.--Hans Christian Andersen
• A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song.--Maya Angelou (quoted in Mind Your Own Bizniche by Squire)
• But an accurate definition of the self is impossible. You are more than you realize, more than you can define. And the more time you spend trying to nail down the definition, the less time you spend living right now. ... Your past is not your identity... You, living now, is your identity.--George Lawrence-Ell (The Invisible Clock)
• By your own soul, learn to live
  And if men thwart you take no heed.
  If men hate you have no care.
  Sing your song, dream your dream,
  Hope your hope and pray your prayer.--Parkenham Beatty
• Committing yourself is a way of finding out who you are. A man finds his identity by identifying.--Robert Terwilliger
• Consult not your fears but your hopes and your dreams. Think not about your frustrations, but about your unfulfilled potential. Concern yourself not with what you tried and failed in, but with what it is still possible for you to do.--Pope John XXIII
• Defining myself, as opposed to being defined by others, is one of the most difficult challenges I face.--Carol Mosely-Braun
• A desire to be in charge of our own lives, a need for control, is born in each of us. It is essential to our mental health, and our success, that we take control.--Robert F. Bennett
• Do what you feel in your heart to be right, for you'll be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do and damned if you don't.--Eleanor Roosevelt
• Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.--Howard Thurman
• Don't be afraid to give your best to what seemingly are small jobs. Every time you conquer one it makes you that much stronger. If you do the little jobs well, the big ones tend to take care of themselves.--Dale Carnegie
• Don't compromise yourself. You are all you've got.--Janis Joplin
• Don't listen to those who say, "It's not done that way." Maybe it's not, but maybe you will. Don't listen to those who say, "You're taking too big a chance." Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today. Most importantly, don't listen when the little voice of fear inside of you rears its ugly head and says, "They're all smarter than you out there. They're more talented, they're taller, blonder, prettier, luckier and have connections…" I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, not to the exclusion of love, sensitivity, and cooperation with others, but with the strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts, and do not make success or failure the criteria by which you live, the chances are you'll be a person worthy of your own respect.--Neil Simon
• Each of us has a fire in our hearts for something. It's our goal in life to find it and to keep it lit.--Mary Lou Retton
• Every year I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing, and which shirking pain, misses happiness as well. No one ever yet was the poorer in the long run for having once in a lifetime "let out all the length of all the reins."--Mary Cholomondeley
• Everything I did in my life that was worthwhile, I caught hell for.--Earl Warren
• The fact remains that the overwhelming majority of people who have become wealthy have become so thanks to work they found profoundly absorbing.... The long term study of people who eventually become wealthy clearly reveals that their "Luck" arouse from the accidental dedication they had to an area they enjoyed.--Srully Blotnick
• Fear is a question: What are you afraid of, and why? Just as the seed of health is in illness, because illness contains information, our fears are a treasure house of self-knowledge if we explore them.--Marilyn Ferguson
• Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts.--Albert Einstein
• Find out who you are and do it on purpose.--Dolly Parton
• The first question here, then, is not "What is best for my soul?" nor is it even "What is most useful to humanity?" But--transcending both these limited aims--what function must this life fulfill in the great and secret economy of God?--Evelyn Underhill (The Spiritual Life)
• Flowers do not force their way with great strife. Flowers open to perfection slowly in the sun.... Don't be in a hurry about spiritual matters. Go step by step, and be very sure.--White Eagle
• The greatest thing is, at any moment, to be willing to give up who we are in order to become all that we can be.--Max De Pree
• How are you going to spend this one odd and precious life you have been issued? Whether you're going to spend it trying to look good and creating the illusion that you have power over people and circumstances, or whether you are going to taste it, enjoy it and find out the truth about who you are.--Anne Lamott (in Starting Over)
• How do the geese know when to fly to the sun? Who tells them the seasons? How do we, humans, know when it is time to move on? As with the migrant birds, so surely with us, there is a voice within, if only we would listen to it, that tells us so certainly when to go forth into the unknown.--Elizabeth Kubler-Ross
• I am still learning--how to take joy in all the people I am, how to use all my selves in the service of what I believe, how to accept when I fail and rejoice when I succeed.--Audre Lorde
• I believe a unique core self is born into every human being; the result of millennia of environment adn heredity combined in an unpredictable way that could never happen before or again.--Gloria Stienem ("A Balance Between Nature and Nuture" in This I Believe ed. by Allison and Gediman)
• I do not want to die...until I have faithfully made the most of my talent and cultivated the seed that was placed in me until the last small twig has grown.--Kathe Kollwitz
• I don't think there ever was a lazy man in this world. Every man has some sort of gift, and he prizes that gift beyond all others. He may be a professional billiard-player, or a Paderewski, or a poet--I don't care what it is. But whatever it is, he takes a native delight in exploiting that gift, and you will find it is difficult to beguile him away from it. Well, there are thousands of other interests occupying other men, but those interests don't appeal to the special tastes of the billiard champion or Paderewski. They are set down, therefore, as too lazy to do that or do this--to do, in short what they have no taste or inclination to do. In that sense, then I am phenomenally lazy. But when it comes to writing a book--I am not lazy. My family find it difficult to dig me out of my chair.--Mark Twain
• I have a basic philosophy that I've tried to follow during my coaching career. Whether you're winning or losing, it's important to always be yourself. You can't change because of the circumstances around you.--Cotton Fitzsimmons
• I have had more trouble with myself than with any other man I've met.--Dwight Moody
• I know this now. Every man gives his life for what he believes. Every woman gives her life for what she believes. Sometimes people believe in little or nothing yet they give their lives to that little or nothing. One life is all we have and we live it as we believe in living it. And then it is gone. But to sacrifice what you are and live without belief, that's more terrible than dying.--Joan of Arc
• I was once afraid of people saying, "Who does she think she is?" Now I have the courage to stand and say, "This is who I am."--Oprah Winfrey
• I will permit no man to narrow and degrade my soul by making me hate him.--Booker T. Washington
• I would be true, for there are those who trust me;
  I would be pure, for there are those who care;
  I would be strong, for there is much to suffer;
  I would be brave, for there is much to dare.--Howard Arnold Walter ("I Would Be True")
• If they give you ruled paper, write the other way.--Juan Ramon Jimenez
• If you're able to be yourself, then you have no competition. All you have to do is get closer and closer to that essence.--Barbara Cook
• The important thing is this: to be able at any moment to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.--Charles Du Bos (Approximations)
• In matters of style, swim with the current; in matters of principle, stand like a rock.--Thomas Jefferson
• It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit. - Harry S. Truman
• It is better to be defeated on principle than to win on lies.--Arthur Calwell
• It is easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.--Alfred Adler
• It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion, it is easy in solitude to live after your own; but the great man is he who, in the midst of the world, keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.--Ralph Waldo Emerson
• It is in vain to hope to please all alike. Let a man stand with his face in what direction he will, he must necessarily turn his back on one half of the world.--George Dennison Prentice
• It is never too late to be what you might have been.--George Eliot
• It is not worth an intelligent man's time to be in the majority. By definition, there are already enough people to do that.--G. H. Hardy
• It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.--Desiderius Erasmus
• It is the highest form of self-respect to admit our errors and mistakes and make amends for them. To make a mistake is only an error in judgment, but to adhere to it when it is discovered shows infirmity of character.--Dale Turner
• It takes years to build up trust, but only seconds to destroy it.
  You can get by on charm for about fifteen minutes.
  After that you'd better know something.
  Don't compare yourself to the best others can do,
  But to the best you can do.
  It's not what happens to people that's important.
  It's what they do about it.
  Always leave loved ones with loving words.
  It may be the last time you see them.
  You control your attitude or it controls you.
  It isn't always enough to be forgiven by others.
  Sometimes you have to learn to forgive yourself.
  Your background and circumstances may have influenced who you are,
  But you are responsible for who you become.
  Even if you do the right thing for the wrong reason,
  It's still the wrong thing to do.--Anonymous
• It's a dangerous thing to name yourself wrongly or to name yourself unjustly.--John O'Donohue (Speaking of Faith interview, Feb. 28, 2008)
• It's a funny thing about life: if you refuse to accept anything but the best you very often get it.--Somerset Maugham
• It's important that people should know what you stand for. It's equally important that they know what you won't stand for.--Mary H. Waldrip
• Josh Billings said, "It is not only the most difficult thing to know oneself, but the most inconvenient one, too." Human beings have always employed an enormous variety of clever devices for running away from themselves, and the modern world is particularly rich in such stratagems.--John W. Gardner
• Just as you would not neglect seeds that you planted with the hope that they will bear vegetables and fruits and flowers, so you must attend to and nourish the garden of your becoming.--Jean Houston
• Knowing others is intelligence; knowing yourself is true wisdom.
  Mastering others is strength; mastering yourself is true power.
  If you realize that you have enough, you are truly rich.--Tao Te Ching
• Learn to live with self and you will learn to live with others.--Edgar Cayce
• Life demands from you only the strength you posses. One one feat is possible -- not to have run away.--Dag Hammarskjold
• Life is not easy for any of us. But what of that? We must have perseverance and above all confidence in ourselves. We must believe that we are gifted for something and that this thing must be attained.--Marie Curie
• Life's challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they're supposed to help you discover who you are.--Bernice Johnson Reagon
• Man is not intended to see through the eyes of another, hear through another's ears nor comprehend with another's brain. Each human creature has individual endowment, power and responsibility in the creative plan of God.--Abdu'l-Baha
• A man is not what he thinks he is, but what he thinks, he is.--Max R. Hickerson
• A man must be obedient to the promptings of his innermost heart.--Robertson Davies (Your Achievement Ezine - Issue No. 153)
• The man who lets a leader prescribe his course is a wreck being towed to the scrap heap.--Ayn Rand
• The mark of a true professional is giving more than you get.--Robert Kirby
• Men make counterfeit money; in many more cases, money makes counterfeit men.--Sydney J. Harris
• The most vigilant self-criticism of course is necessary, but the time comes when the artist must tell himself he is good or he will go under.--George Moore
• Neither evil tongues,
  Rash judgements, nor the sneers of selfish men,
  Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all
  The dreary intercourse of daily life,
  Shall e'er prevail against us.--William Wordsworth
• Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one's definition of your life, but define yourself.--Harvey Fierstein
• Never explain--your friends do not need it, and your enemies will not believe you anyway.--Elbert Hubbard
• Never follow somebody else's path; it doesn't work the same way twice for anyone...the path follows you and rolls up behind you as you walk, forcing the next person to find their own way.--J. Michael Straczynski
• Ninety percent of the world's woe comes from people not knowing themselves, their abilities, their frailties, and even their real virtues. Most of us go almost all the way through life as complete strangers to ourselves.--Sydney J. Harris
• No one is to be called an enemy, all are your benefactors, and no one does you harm. You have no enemy except yourselves.--St. Francis of Assisi
• No star is ever lost we once have seen,
  We always may be what we might have been.--Adelaide A. Proctor
• Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.--Margaret Young
• On this subject I do not which to think, or speak, or write, with moderation. No! No! Tell a man whose house is on fire to give a moderate alarm; tell him to moderately rescue his wife from the hands of the ravisher; tell the mother to gradually extricate her babe from the fire into which it has fallen; but urge me not to use moderation in a cause like the present. I am in earnest; I will not equivocate; I will not retreat a single inch; and I will be heard.--Lloyd Garrison (The Liberator)
• One can never consent to creep when one feels an impulse to soar.--Helen Keller
• One does not "find oneself" by pursuing one's self, but on the contrary by pursuing something else and learning through discipline or routine … who one is and wants to be.--May Sarton
• One does what one can, not what one cannot.--Agatha Christie
• The one person who most blocks you from a full, happy, and successful life is you. He is therefore wise who makes himself an asset. We can be our won worst enemy or best friend. We can be a source of trouble or a cure for trouble. So if you feel empty, as many do, start by getting free from yourself as a first stop to vibrant living.--Norman Vincent Peale
• One's philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes ... and the choices we make are ultimately our responsibility.--Eleanor Roosevelt
• The only one thing I can change is myself, but sometimes that makes all of the difference.--Anonymous
• Only to the extent that someone is living out this self transcendence of human existence, is he truly human or does he become his true self. He becomes so, not by concerning himself with his self's actualization, but by forgetting himself and giving himself, overlooking himself and focusing outward.--Viktor E. Frankl
• Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God! Your playing small doesn't' serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.--Nelson Mandela
• Our dependency makes slaves out of us, especially if this dependency is a dependency of our self-esteem. If you need encouragement, praise, pats on the back from everybody, then you make everybody your judge.--Fritz Perls
• People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.--J. Michael Straczynski
• People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.--H. Jackson Brown
• Perhaps nobody ever accomplishes all that he feels lies in him to do but nearly every one who tries his power touches the walls of his being occasionally, and learns about how far to attempt to spring.--Charles Dudley Warner ("Third Study" Backlog Studies)
• Practice rather than preach. Make of your life an affirmation, defined by your ideals, not the negation of others. Dare to the level of your capability then go beyond to a higher level.--Alexander Haig (in Success Secrets of Super Achievers by Stovall)
• Put yourself in a state of mind where you say to yourself, "Here is an opportunity for you to celebrate like never before, my own power, my own ability to get myself to do whatever is necessary.--Anthony Robbins
• Real confidence comes from knowing and accepting yourself--your strengths and your limitations--in contrast to depending on affirmation from others.--Judith M. Bardwick
• The roots of true achievement lie in the will to become the best that you can become.--Harold Taylor
• The search for self-worth begins by finding what is indestructible inside, then letting it be.--Prudence Kohl
• Self-confidence is so relaxing. There is no strain or stress when one is self-confident. Our lack of self-confidence comes from trying to be someone we aren't.--Anne Wilson Schaef
• Self-conquest is really self-surrender. Yet before we can surrender ourselves we must become ourselves. For no one can give up what he does not possess.--Thomas Merton
• Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted, but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.--Garrison Keillor
• Sometimes the best way to figure out who you are is to get to that place where you don't have to be anything else.--Unknown
• Start doing the things you think should be done, and start being what you think society should become. Do you believe in free speech? Then speak freely. Do you love the truth? Then tell it. Do you believe in an open society? Then act in the open. Do you believe in a decent and humane society? Then behave decently and humanely.--Adam Michnik
• Story re-orders, sifts through experience, and allows others, young children and adults alike, to hear what we think truly matters. We are constituted by the stories we tell ourselves and others. Thus stories serve an ontological purpose. Story connects us with that which lies beyond ourselves and this process makes us ask questions about the meanings of our lives. It is, in fact, a way we can begin to define what we mean when we use the term "spirituality."--Barbara Kimes Myers (Young Children and Spirituality)
• Take care, don't fight, and remember: if you do not choose to lead, you will forever be led by others. Find what scares you, and do it. And you can make a difference, if you choose to do so.--J. Michael Straczynski
• Take your life in your own hands, and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame.--Erica Jong
• That you may retain your self-respect, it is better to displease the people by doing what you know is right, than to temporarily please them by doing what you know is wrong.--William J. H. Boetcker
• There are many who are living far below their possibilities because they are continually handing over their individualities to others. Do you want to be a power I the world? Then be yourself.--Ralph Waldo Trine
• There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night, and if you go, no one may follow, that path is for your steps alone.--Jerry Garcia (Ripple)
• There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost.--Martha Graham
• There is nothing with which every man is so afraid as getting to know how enormously much he is capable of doing and becoming.--Soren Kierkegaard
• There is only one you for all time. Fearlessly be yourself.--Anonymous
• There is something in every one of you that waits and listens for the sound of the genuine in yourself. It is the only true guide you will ever have. And if you cannot hear it, you will all of your life spend your days on the ends of strings that somebody else pulls.--Howard Thurman
• There's a period of life when we swallow a knowledge of ourselves and it becomes either good or sour inside.--Pearl Bailey
• There's always someone to tell you you have to. Wrong. Don't. Rather, spend time finding out who you really are. Work on being more of that. A lot better than the futile "gotta change" treadmill, which never really ends.--Shirley Jones (in Success Secrets of Super Achievers by Stovall)
• They will say you are on the wrong road, if it is your own.--Antonio Porchi
• The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself.--Anna Quindlen
• Think about your future possibilities and the fact that your potential is virtually unlimited. You can do what you want to do and go where you want to go. You can be the person you want to be. You can set large and small goals and make plans and move step-by-step, progressively toward their realization. There are no obstacles to what you can accomplish except the obstacles that you create in your mind.--Brian Tracy
• Those who know others are intelligent
  Those who know themselves have insight.
  Those who master others have force
  Those who master themselves have strength.Those who know what is enough are wealthy.
  Those who persevere have direction.
  Those who maintain their position endure.
  And those who die and yet do not perish, live on.--Lao Tzu
  
• Throughout the years of your life you will face many challenges, remember that you can climb the highest mountain, drive through the roughest storm, soar across the bluest sky, or even sail across the roughest waters. It is only destined by your attitude where you will end up in life. The most important thing is don't let yourself get lost in the crowd.--Angela Duvall
• To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything is itself to succumb to the violence of our times.--Thomas Merton
• To be nobody-but-yourself--in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else--means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.--e. e. cummings
• To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life.--Baruch Spinoza
• To do good thing in the world, first you must know who you are and what gives meaning to your life.--Paula P. Brownlee
• To dream of the person you'd like to be, is a waste to the person you are.--Author unknown
• To every man there openeth A way, and ways, and a way. And the high soul climbs the high way, And the low soul gropes the low: And in between, on the misty flats, The rest drift to and fro. But to every man there openeth A high way and a low, And every man decideth. The way his soul shall go.--John Oxenham
• To know oneself, one should assert oneself.--Camus
• Today you are You,
  that is truer than true.
  There is no one alive
  who is Youer than You.--Dr. Seuss
• Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like.--Will Rogers
• Unless your heart, your soul, and your whole being are behind every decision you make, the words from your mouth will be empty, and each action will be meaningless. Truth and confidence are the roots of happiness.--Kathleen Pedersen
• The two important things I did learn were that you are as powerful and strong as you allow yourself to be, and that the most difficult part of any endeavor is taking the first step, making the first decision.--Robyn Davidson
• Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have.--Doris Mortman
• Walking your talk is a great way to motivate yourself. No one likes to live a lie. Be honest with yourself, and you will find the motivation to do what you advise others to do.--Vince Poscente (Invinceable Principles)
• The way in which we think of ourselves has everything to do with how our world sees us and how we can see ourselves successfully acknowledged by that world.--Arlene Raven
• We are all born originals--why is it so many of us die copies?--Edward Young
• We are like violins. We can be used as doorstops, or we can make music.--Barbara Sher
• We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.--Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.
• We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.--Aristotle.
• We fail to see that we can control our destiny; make ourselves do whatever is possible; make ourselves become whatever we long to be.--Orison Swett Marden
• We must overcome the notion that we must be regular...it robs you of the chance to be extraordinary and leads you to the mediocre.--Uta Hagen
• We say we waste time, but that is impossible. We waste ourselves.--Alice Bloch
• We should every night call ourselves to an account: what infirmity have I mastered to-day? what passions opposed? what temptation resisted? what virtue acquired? Our vices will abate of themselves if they be brought every day to the shrift.--Seneca
• What another would have done as well as you, do not do it. What another would have said as well as you, do not say it; what another would have written as well, do not write it. Be faithful to that which exists nowhere but in yourself.--Andre Gide
• What can we gain by sailing to the moon if we are not able to cross the abyss that separates us from ourselves? This is the most important of all voyages of discovery, and without it, all the rest are not only useless, but disastrous...--Thomas Merton
• What I am thinking and doing day by day is resistlessly shaping my future--a future in which there is no expiation except through my own better conduct. No one can live my life for me. If I am wise I shall begin today to build my own truer and better world from within.--H. W. Dresser
• What the world needs now is for each of us to be who we truly are, and to bring our gifts into the world. Don't hold back any longer. Be Present, Be You. That is enough. Really it is.--Nancy Bishop ("Getting To Know YOU")
• Whatever you are by nature, keep to it; never desert your line of talent. Be what nature intended you for, and you will succeed.--Sydney Smith
• Wherever you are, whatever your circumstances may be, whatever misfortune you may have suffered, the music of your life has not gone. It's inside you--if you listen to it, you can play it.--Nido Qubein
• When I'm trusting and being myself as fully as possible, everything in my life reflects this by falling into place easily, often miraculously.--Shakti Gawain
• When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other. Originality is deliberate and forced, and partakes of the nature of a protest--Eric Hoffer (The Passionate State of Mind)
• When you acknowledge the less than perfect parts of yourself, something magical begins to happen. Along with the negative, you'll also begin to notice the positive, the wonderful aspects of yourself that you may not have given yourself credit for, or perhaps even been aware of.--Richard Carlson (Don't Sweat the Small Stuff)
• When you take charge of your life, there is no longer need to ask permission of other people or society at large. When you ask permission, you give someone veto power over your life.--Geoffrey F. Abert
• Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform.--Mark Twain
• Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.--Friedrich Nietzsche
• Why be afraid of what people will say? Those who care about you will say, "Good luck!" and those who care only about themselves will never say anything worth listening to anyway.--J. Z. Knight
• Why not be oneself? That is the whole secret of a successful appearance. If one is a greyhound why try to look like a Pekinese?--Edith Sitwell
• Women are always being tested ... but ultimately, each of us has to define who we are individually and then do the very best job we can to grow into it.--Hillary Rodham Clinton
• The world needs people like you to dream of something great and then pursue it with all your heart.--Chris Widener
• You cannot take the mild approach to the weeds in your mental garden. You have got to hate weeds enough to kill them. Weeds are not something you handle; weeds are something you devastate.--Jim Rohn (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine - May 11, 2004)
• You got to sing like you don't need the money
  Love like you'll never get hurt
  You got to dance like nobody's watchin'
  It's gotta come from the heart
  If you want it to work.--Susanna Clark & Richard Leigh
• You have a masterpiece inside you, you know. One unlike any that ahs ever been created, or ever will be. If you go to your grave without painting your masterpiece, it will not get painted. No one else can paint it. Only you.--Gordon MacKenzie
• You have to have confidence in your ability, and then be tough enough to follow through.--Rosalynn Carter
• You must constantly ask yourself these questions: Who am I around? What are they doing to me? What have they got me reading? What have they got me saying? Where do they have me going? What do they have me thinking? And most important, what do they have me becoming? Then ask yourself the big question: Is that okay?--Jim Rohn (Jim Rohn's Weekly E-zine, July 21, 2003)
• You need to claim the events of your life to make yourself yours. When you truly possess all that you have been and done, which may take some time, you are fierce with reality.--Florida Scott Maxwell
• You really have to look inside yourself and find your own inner strength, and say, "I'm proud of what I am and who I am, and I'm just going to be myself."--Mariah Carey
• You will make a lousy anybody else, but you will be the best "you" in existence.--Zig Ziglar (Zig Ziglar's Little Book of Big Quotes)
• Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.--Carl Jung